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British Communism and the Politics of Race

British Communism and the Politics of Race explores the role that the Communist Party of Great Britain played within the anti-racism movement in Britain from the 1940s to the 1980s. As one of the first organisations to undertake serious anti-colonial and anti-racist activism within the British labour movement, the CPGB was a pioneering force that campaigned against racial discrimination, popular imperialism and fascist violence in British society.

The book examines the balancing act that the Communist Party negotiated in its anti-racist work, between making appeals to the labour movement to get involved in the fight against racism and working with Britain's ethnic minority communities, who often felt let down by the trade unions and the Labour Party. Transitioning from a class-based outlook to an embrace of the new social movements of the 1960s–70s, the CPGB played an important role in the anti-racist struggle, but by the 1980s, it was eclipsed by more radical and diverse activist organisations.

Biographical note

Evan Smith, Ph.D. (2007), Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, is a Visiting Adjunct Fellow at that university. He co-wrote Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control (Palgrave, 2014) and co-edited Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956 (MUP, 2014).

Readership

This book will be of interest to readers of British left-wing history and politics, as well as those interested in the history of British race relations, including academics, postgraduate students and activists.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

IntroductionThemesShifting Away from the Centrality of ClassThinking Intersectionally about the CPGB and the Politics of ‘Race’Situating the Party’s Anti-racism within the Wider ScholarshipA Note on MethodologyBook Structure

1 The End of Empire and the Windrush Moment, 1945–60The Communist Party’s Anti-colonial TraditionsThe CPGB and the Era of DecolonisationLeft Nationalism and the Postwar CPGBThe Response of the Communist Party to Commonwealth MigrationThe Campaign Against Polish ResettlementThe Legacy of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ and the CPGB’s Postwar Anti-fascismAnti-fascist Action against the Fascist Revival of the Union Movement, 1945–51The Impact of Commonwealth Migrants upon the Party’s Anti-colonial/Anti-racist OutlookThe Nationality BranchesConclusion

2 Anti-racism and Building the ‘Mass Party’, 1960–9The Communist Party, Labour and Immigration ControlsThe Principle of Immigration ControlsThe Campaign for Legislation against Racial DiscriminationThe Race Relations Acts Under Labour, 1965–8The CPGB’s Concept of ‘Race’ in the Post-Colonial EraThe Movement for Colonial Freedom and Moderate Anti-racismThe Beginnings of the ‘British Upturn’ and the Radicalism of ‘1968’The Trade Unions and RaceThe Rise of New Social Movements and Black RadicalismThe Link with International IssuesCapitulating to Racism: Labour and the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968Integration and ‘Good Race Relations’: The 1968 Race Relations ActPowellism and the Rise of the National FrontConclusion

3 The Crisis Emerges, 1970–5The 1971 Immigration Act and Opposition to the Conservative GovernmentThe Communist Party and the Reaction of the Trade Unions to the Immigration ActFacing the Limits of Industrial MilitancyThe Ugandan Asian ‘Controversy’ and the Rise of the National Front under the ConservativesThe ‘No Platform’ StrategyRed Lion Square and the Death of Kevin GatelyThe Trade Union Response to Fascism and Racism in the 1970sAsian Workers and the Trade Unions in the Early 1970s: Mansfield Hosiery Mills and Imperial TypewritersConclusion

4 The Great Moving Right Show, 1976–9The Building of the Broad Democratic AllianceThe Grunwick StrikeIntersectionality and the British Labour MovementPolicing the Labour MovementThe NF’s Shift to the Streets and the Rise of the Asian Youth MovementsThe Rise of the SWP and the Revival of Militant Anti-fascismThe ‘Battle of Lewisham’‘The National Front is a Nazi Front’: The Anti-Nazi League, 1977–9Rock Against RacismThe ANL and the Wider British leftSouthall and the Death of Blair Peach‘Feeling Rather Swamped’: Thatcher and the Exploitation of Popular RacismConclusion

5 Babylon’s Burning: Into the 1980sFurther Defeats for the CPGBThe Police and the Black CommunitiesFrom Southall to Brixton: The Violent Reaction to the Police Under Thatcher‘Crisis in the Inner Cities’: The Communist Party’s ReactionThe 1981 Riots as Social ProtestLord Scarman’s Report and the Denial of Institutional RacismThe Broad Democratic Alliance and Municipal Anti-racismThe ‘Limits’ of Trade Unionism in the 1980sThe Push for Black Sections/Caucuses within the Labour MovementThe End of the PartyConclusion

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